After Midnight by Colleen Faulkner

faded. She watched in horrified awe as he curled into a fetal position, his cloak covering him entirely.
    "Gordon! Gordon!" she cried. But she didn't dare approach him. Not yet.
    He made groaning, whimpering sounds as he seemed to grow small under the cloak. He was disappearing. There no longer seemed to be anyone beneath the cloak.
    Hot tears ran down her cheeks. She was shivering again. "What have I done? What have I done?" she moaned.
    Emily squeezed her eyes shut, clutched her cold hands, and prayed fervently. "Let him be all right. Let him live."
    She made herself open her eyes.
    It was dark now. The light was gone. But so was the wind, the rain. Behind her, the seas had calmed. In confusion she stared up at the sky that had been dark and swirling only moments before.
    Before her eyes, bright pinpricks of stars appeared in the dark canopy of the night sky. Pale moonlight was just beginning to seep from behind the clouds. The moonlight fell… on Gordon's cloak.
    She rose. "Gordon? Gordon, can you hear me?"
    Once again there was someone beneath the cloak. She fell to her knees beside it. But who? What if she had not saved Gordon, but saved the demon?
    "Gordon?" It took every fiber of nerve she possessed to pull back the cloak.
    "E. Bruce MacDougal, is that ye?" It was Gordon's voice. Gordon's humor.
    "Oh, you're all right!" She threw her arms around him, not caring what he looked like or whose body he possessed. What mattered was that it was him. "Oh, you're all right!" She clasped his face between her sandy, wet hands and covered it with kisses.
    Gordon grasped her by the waist and pulled her down beside him. "This is rather pleasing attention." He kissed her on the lips. "But could you tell a confused Scotsman what's happened?" He glanced around. "And where are we?"
    "You don't remember?"
    "I remember breakfast. Fish, biscuits with a little jam."
    She laughed. This was Gordon. Her Gordon.
    She quickly recounted the tale to the point of her arrival on the island. Gordon held her hands tightly in his.
    "Ye shouldna have come, my sweetness. You shouldna risked your life for me. Do ye know what would have happened if ye failed? Do ye understand what I would have done to ye? At best killed ye. At worst… taken your soul?"
    She grinned. "But I didn't fail. And now you're a mortal just like me. You'll grow old and wrinkled. We'll grow old together."
    He lifted his hand to his lips and kissed it. "So what was the answer?" His green eyes had turned dark brown again. The fangs were gone. He was his handsome self again. "Tell me."
    She knew her cheeks colored. She could feel the warmth of embarrassment spreading. But she did not look away. She held his gaze in hers: "The voluntary kiss of a virgin at the moment of her death."
    He stared in amazement. "You saved me with your kiss?"
    "My virginal kiss." A smile twitched on her lips. "See that. I told Ruth I was saving myself for something special."
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Epilogue

     
    Fraser Castle
    Two Years Later
     
    "Gordon?"
    "In the library," he called.
    Emily followed the corridor, her high-button shoes clip-clapping on the slate-tiled floor. She checked the pocket watch that dangled on a chain and rested inside her skirt pocket. "Gordon, the book has arrived on the mail steamer." She entered the cluttered room to find her husband perched on the library ladder, his back to her. He was replacing books on one of the high shelves. "I thought I'd get right to work on the repairs. So could you look after Isabella when she wakes from her nap?"
    "Aye." Gordon turned.
    Emily gasped and brought her hands to her face, her heart tripping. "Gordon," she breathed.
    He smiled handsomely, baring long white fangs. "Aye, love?"
    "Gordon, are you all right?"
    He climbed down the ladder, seemingly unaware of his transformation. "Aye, why do ye ask?"
    She touched her lips with two fingers. Her heart was pounding, but she knew she had to remain calm. Surely there was an explanation for the fangs. Gordon was now